Reflection on Today's Readings, Friday of Easter Octave, Year B, April 9th, 2021
Texts: Acts 4:1-12; Ps. 118:1-2.4.22-27; John 21:1-14
The events after Easter show that Easter period is time of revival, reorientation, and building of faith. It is time of revival from the shock and scandal of the Cross. The disciples of Jesus Christ could not imagine such a thing being the lot of Jesus Christ. Perhaps, when He told them beforehand of His passion, death and resurrection, they misunderstood it. With the passion and death of our Lord Jesus Christ, their hope dashed and they were disoriented. In their disappointment, they went back to their former ways of life. Jesus Christ had to reorient them, He had to direct their interests to their calling, He had to remind them of the winning of souls. They were to catch people, not fish. The miracle in today's gospel reading recalls the miracle Jesus performed when He told Peter, "Do not be afraid; from now on it is people you will be catching" (Luke 5:10b). The miracle would have reminded them of their calling to catch people. Hence, with the miracle, Jesus reoriented them, He redirected their interests to their calling.
Our case is not different from that of Jesus' disciples. There is tendency for us to go back to our former ways, which we have left behind during lent. There is tendency to give up almsgivings, devotion to God's words, fervent prayer, penance and pious devotions that help us to grow spiritually. The tendency to backslide is always there. We are called today not to relent, but to brace up, to re-energize ourselves.
Easter period is also about building of faith in the risen Christ. Jesus Christ had to build the faith of His disciples in Himself, they needed to believe that He lived with them. They needed to know that He lived with them even when they did not see him. In today's gospel reading, He fed them and ate with them to build their faith in Himself, the risen One. It was an attempt to show them that He lived with them as before, even though they did not see Him with their senses. Christ lives with us, even when we do not see Him with our eyes, hear Him with our ears or feel His presence will our skins. He lives with us as a person.
The first reading tells us the kind of faith Jesus Christ built in His disciples; it is the kind of faith that yields neither to suffering nor death. In the reading, Peter spoke boldly, without fear or favour. Peter says, Rulers of the people and elders, if we are being examined today concerning a good deed done to a cripple, by what means this man has been healed, be it known to you all, and to all the people of Israel, that by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified, whom God raised from the dead, by him this man is standing before you well. This is the stone which was rejected by you builders, but which has become the cornerstone. And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.” It is this kind of faith that God expects from us.
Lord our God, help us to overcome any kind of doubt and fear which ruin faith, may our faith be strong to contend with the challenges of life. Amen.
Fr. Andrew Olowomuke
